The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2

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We decipher what it is and why you should care.

By Douglass C. Perry

The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 is a little deceiving at first. While the title quite literally says what the package is, the DVD software is a giant set of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty game extras, like those found on a movie DVD. What do we have to compare it to in the game industry? What really precedes this type of software on PlayStation 2? Like Metal Gear Solid 2, pretty much nothing. It is a digital document chronicling the production of one of the most impressive pieces of game development in the history of videogames.

What The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 is not, however, is a game. You don't play it, not entirely. So don't go buying this thinking you're in for the next MGS at the sweet price of $19.99. And while I carefully point this out, Konami has indeed included some playable parts, five simple VR training sessions. (You know, it's hard to say anything absolute about a Hideo Kojima game...) In short, it's a deep, thorough DVD extras compilation that examines the making of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and it's one geniunely impressive piece of software at that.

The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 comprises two major sections, "The Making of" and VR Missions. As I said above, VR Missions is a five-part virtual set of missions much like those provided in Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions on PlayStation and those about to come in Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance. It's self-explanatory: Players enter into a neutral game world painted with flat orange and green backgrounds, and from an isometric perspective, they learn (or re-learn) how to sneak, handle weapons, eliminate enemies, use the HF Blade, and how to use a variety of tactics to progress. Think of it as a very, very short demo of MGS: Substance.

"The Making of" is a highly organized set of viewable items that enable gamers to learn just how much work, organization, time, effort, tools, background research and other excruciating details went into making this highly evolved production of a game. The menu breaks down into these parts: Characters, Mechanics, Background, Polygonal Demos, Programs, Sound, Items, Gameplan, Script, Staff, Chronicle, Special Footage.

The interface replicates the game perfectly to create the impression that one is actually inside the game, and almost playing it. And most importantly, it's entirely non-linear. There is no beginning, middle or end, which makes infinitely more fun to search through. Its resemblance is more of an intranet directory with MGS2 interfaces than anything else.

Each of the 12 categories features sub-divisions within it. Some less, some more. And each can be clicked on and managed in the exact same way players learned to handle Snake's and Raiden's inventory system in the game. Using the R2 button the vertical and horizontal options appear on screen, offering various handy functions, such as linking to related objects (if you are looking at the 3D model of the tanker, you can link to to Snake or Revolver Ocelot, for instance).

In the Characters selection screen, viewers can select from among 27 characters in the game (Solid Snake, Fortune, Vamp, Raiden, Olga, Fatman -- everyone), each with various sketches and or 3D models. Snake appears in three models, one in his standard MGS outfit, another in the hooded raincoat he wears while walking on the bridge (and he's running in a repeating animation loop), and another model using the hand-drawn textures from Shinkawa's artistic drawings of Snake texture mapped over a 3D model. Viewers can choose from various backgrounds, such as the tanker, too, which also links to various tanker-related items as well.

Sound offers five variations of music you might hear on a sector of any part in the game. A five-point rotating chart enables players to switch between danger, abading danger, or stealth, for instance. Timeline is less interactive, though not less interesting. It lists the entire development process from July 1998 to March 2002, including items such as "Designer Yoshinira gets married," and the shooting of footage for the making of the DVD. Items features shots of all the different MGS2 action figures, magazine covers and illustrations of the different characters.

Special Footage delivers the numerous promotional videos of MGS2 from the unveiling at E3 2000 to the altered ECTS footage, to videos shown at TGS and other public events. Script is self-explanatory: It presents every single word from the game in script form. And Program offers potential game designers an excellent inside look at how the game was conceptualized, organized and delineated for all the various teams working on the project.

The other sectors are just as fascinating, and after only a half hour of skimming the game's outlines of options, it becomes clear the package you just bought isn't just an ordinary DVD set of features. It's a huge, deeply woven, highly complex treasure chest of MGS2 clips, artifacts, movies, interviews and highly embedded compartments within compartments within comparments of history, production notes and story material. It's a trove of MGS2 documentation that's just as wondefully deep and complex as the game itself.

And what really makes it likeable is that unlike so many DVD extras, it's a humble, focused piece. There is little to no vanity peeking out from the massive library of portraits, team interviews and production notes. It's about the game and the incredible journey it took get from the beginning (including the entire timeline from 1998 to 2001) to the ending, in which, from the lens of a hand-held video camera, we see the SCE-approved confirmation letter spit out form a Fax machine and taken up by the hands of Hideo Kojima himself.

Douglass C. Perry's Take Having had my fair share of MGS2 over the last two years, I've had enough time to get some distance from MGS2, that I'm ready to delve back into Metal Gear land. Which makes the timing of this DVD excellent. I'm going to bring this home and my son and I are going to click and search through its many chambers for hours in the next few weekends, over which I'm sure it'll spark numerous discussions about the game's ambitious goals and storyline, and more.

But I wasn't that excited about it at first. Initially I felt The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 was a little pretentious. A full DVD about Metal Gear? But after opening it up and searching through its deep library for like five minutes, that concern was quickly washed away by the intense yearning to search through every part of the document to see how much I knew, or had forgetten, or didn't know at all. For $19.99 (or even more) this is an excellent piece of software.

Dr. Rev. David F. Smith's Take The inclusion of DVD-style extras in games has been a very favorable trend in the last year or so, with SSX Tricky kicking things off and several other major releases following suit. Now, we get an entire separate disc of extras, and one which takes advantage of the interactive format to an unprecedented degree. Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 is about as far behind the scenes of a game's development as the public has ever gotten, and it's quite an interesting experience.

What's particularly impressive about the structure of the Document is the way its various odds and ends are so closely tied together. Almost everything includes a hyperlink to something else, so if you look at a particular 3D model, the software can instantly send you over to sketches of the same object, a movie in which it appeared, comments from its designer, and other related information. It's hard to get a good handle on exactly how much stuff is here just by looking at the various section indexes -- the full scope isn't revealed until you just trip around the disc, following links from here to there.

Considering the amount of information on offer, the price is certainly right. Reflect, after all, that Japanese fans paid a fair bit more than $20 for the old MGS2 Trailer DVD -- the Document includes a complete trailer archive, and that's only a small fraction of its content. It does seem to lack the old E3 reaction documentary, which is unfortunate, starring as that did the photogenic presence of yours truly, but you can't ask for everything...

Jeremy Dunham's Take I sincerely hope that The Document of Metal Gear Solid is the beginning of a new trend in videogame supplements. The coolest bonus that I think I've ever seen, the ability to go back and discover what went into making one of the best PlayStation 2 titles yet released was unfathomably enjoyable. With as much hype and hoopla that's surrounded this series over the last couple of years, I'm actually surprised that something like this hasn't been released in a previous form already.

While the feature-packed disc is more than worthy of your $20 for the extra VR Missions and awesome list of extras, the two goodies that really stood out for me were the 'Special Footage' and 'Game plan' selections. Going back in time and remembering how wowed we were at E3 2000 and 2001, watching those trailer videos in DVD-quality was something else. Additionally, seeing when certain ideas were formed and implemented (along with the days people got married, fed their dog, and other such trivial matters) was pretty cool too, and it helps mold a tangible picture as to what type of effort it really too to create Metal Gear.

The only aspect that I would have liked to see more of are developer, programmer, and voice actor documentaries. Playing through the game countless times can familiarize us with the make-believe characters and world that we're enchanted with, but it doesn't necessarily tell us about the people who made the game. Granted there are plenty of behind the scenes profiling, but I still would have liked to see even more. Call me greedy, it still would have been pretty cool though I am more than pleased with the finished product in front of me.